The reason I don't post regularly here is not because I don't care; it's that once I get sucked in I'll never stop.

After reading all your (very informative) follow up posts all I can say to you is, "Damn! That was close!"

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

Thanks for the updates. Brexit has totally flummoxed me. All those things you cite were pretty obvious to the leavers, no?

Which Leavers? Boris Johnson - yes. But he doesn't care about his country or his countrymen, he did it for personal ambition!
My theory: Brexit was a useful device, not a real objective. The problem is that if you get the thing you are in a bit of a dog-catches-car situation. The expectation was that Leave would lose, and the Leave promoters would have prosperous careers cultivating the angst about Brexit for personal political gain, ensuring Conservative majorities (due to vote efficiency) & a large cadre of UKIP EU parliamentarians built on the foundation of failed-Brexit resentment.
This is the through-line of anglo-conservativism, from the UK, to Australia, to Canada, to the US, the point is to win power to enrich the wealthy and unleash the growth potential of business profits. The means to that end - the use of nonsensical rubbish that is based on a foundation of lies about the voters' own interests - dictates that you can never actually accomplish the stated goals! Once you do it everyone might notice it didn't work!

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire

For the British politicians who supported it or for Vladimir Putin? Or perhaps the both?

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

For the British politicians who supported it or for Vladimir Putin? Or perhaps the both?

I think that for the likes of Farage & Johnson they certainly didn't want to win. Look at Farage's behaviour, he literally decided to flee the country after Leave won. (He has since had to return to pay his bills because the overseas grift wasn't as easy as the thought it was going to be - speaking to crowds as large as 300 people in Australia for example.)
I think Brexit was like Trump winning, much better than Putin could have hoped for.

Which Leavers? Boris Johnson - yes. But he doesn't care about his country or his countrymen, he did it for personal ambition!
My theory: Brexit was a useful device, not a real objective. The problem is that if you get the thing you are in a bit of a dog-catches-car situation. The expectation was that Leave would lose, and the Leave promoters would have prosperous careers cultivating the angst about Brexit for personal political gain, ensuring Conservative majorities (due to vote efficiency) & a large cadre of UKIP EU parliamentarians built on the foundation of failed-Brexit resentment.
This is the through-line of anglo-conservativism, from the UK, to Australia, to Canada, to the US, the point is to win power to enrich the wealthy and unleash the growth potential of business profits. The means to that end - the use of nonsensical rubbish that is based on a foundation of lies about the voters' own interests - dictates that you can never actually accomplish the stated goals! Once you do it everyone might notice it didn't work!

That is a brilliant synopsis. Now the puzzle is why are the Tories not killing Brexit. Perhaps they plan to kill it later or maybe have found a new way to milk the wealth of the UK.

A doctor knows a little about a lot. A specialist knows a lot about a little. In time the doctor knows less and less about more and more and the specialist knows more and more about less and less until ultimately the doctor knows nothing about everything and the specialist knows everything about nothing.

That is a brilliant synopsis. Now the puzzle is why are the Tories not killing Brexit. Perhaps they plan to kill it later or maybe have found a new way to milk the wealth of the UK.

Or maybe they are terrified of the loss of face from admitting a mistake. Double down again!

The way a lot of catastrophes happen is that X doesn't occur because there are safeguards in place, therefore people assume X isn't a worry and they remove the safeguards. Then X happens.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO

That is a brilliant synopsis. Now the puzzle is why are the Tories not killing Brexit. Perhaps they plan to kill it later or maybe have found a new way to milk the wealth of the UK.

Following on the same themes as my earlier post, what is the conceivable path to power for a Tory leader, and a Tory party, that kills Brexit? May's trajectory is the only path that saves the Tories as an institution:
- Hard Brexit keeps the Tories together in spite of it being a calamity and deeply wounding the party.
- May's version of soft Brexit keeps the Tories together to fight for "more" Brexit.
Both of these things are not assured outcomes of course but to me the almost certain outcome of cancelling Brexit is a knock-down drag-out fight where the most extreme Euro-skeptics and bigots win control of the Conservative party and they spend the next decade fighting over UKIP's voters instead of challenging for forming government. The chamber of commerce conservatives that actually don't want any kind of Brexit understand that I think and feel that a disastrous Brexit might be bad but it is small price to pay for undermining the labour movement & regressive taxation.

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire

Politics as a literal death match (at least for those who are less well off). That's just ... great.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

Enjoy. It will be light relief from the problems of your own dear country. If we crash and burn it will hardly affect the USA, and even our neighbours in Europe—France, Netherlands, Belgium—will suffer no more than severish irritation. I'm carefully not mentioning Ireland.

Whereas if America sinks, the wash will swamp quite a few small and middle-sized boats.

Reality is a hallucination caused by alcohol deprivation.

Only Satan can rebuke sin. The righteous don't know enough.

God is not dead. He was merely voted out of office.

You can do anything with anybody if you just save them the trouble of thinking.

Enjoy. It will be light relief from the problems of your own dear country. If we crash and burn it will hardly affect the USA, and even our neighbours in Europe—France, Netherlands, Belgium—will suffer no more than severish irritation. I'm carefully not mentioning Ireland.

Whereas if America sinks, the wash will swamp quite a few small and middle-sized boats.

May Euphemistically calls it 'A managed glide path' but we all know it is going to be BRACE BRACE BRACE - - - - - - CRASH.

A doctor knows a little about a lot. A specialist knows a lot about a little. In time the doctor knows less and less about more and more and the specialist knows more and more about less and less until ultimately the doctor knows nothing about everything and the specialist knows everything about nothing.

Why should he love us, or cut us any slack? In Brussels there are hundreds of EU officials who speak English and whose job it is to read the British newspapers, including the Times, Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express, as there are in every European capital city. What sort of view do they have of us, after reading ill-informed venomous abuse for forty years?

Why should he love us, or cut us any slack? In Brussels there are hundreds of EU officials who speak English and whose job it is to read the British newspapers, including the Times, Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express, as there are in every European capital city. What sort of view do they have of us, after reading ill-informed venomous abuse for forty years?

Sad but true. When the fuss is over and the EU has settled they will be saying 'Good riddance'. And who can blame them?

if Charles de Gaulle had had his way we would never have got in to start with. He knew we would be disruptive. De Gaulle resigned in 69 but was still a force. He had an aneurysm in 70. Hmmmmn. We finally got in in 73.

A doctor knows a little about a lot. A specialist knows a lot about a little. In time the doctor knows less and less about more and more and the specialist knows more and more about less and less until ultimately the doctor knows nothing about everything and the specialist knows everything about nothing.

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

a lot of these sound like what we had here before the Regan "government IS the problem" nonsense followed by the next few decades of Rethugs systematic dismantling of government working for the greater good.

Pray for Trump: Psalm 109:8

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Brexit deal goes down 432-to-202. No confidence voted scheduled. Not sure why this is May's fault. Seems like the fundamental problem was the electorate getting a "should we stay or should we go" initiative that had no specific plan of how to accomplish it. Now what?